NFC partners NIPPS on strategies to advance creative industry

The realisation that potential in the entertainment industry must be harnessed to create job opportunities for the teeming unemployed youths has set some bodies into action. Nigerian Film Corporation (NFC) has set the ball rolling with its partnership with policymaking body, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPPS). This would create an enduring policy framework that would engender growth and development through holding a Think Thank Conference. The two agencies inaugurated the joint committee for the conference on Monday, September 25.

Both institutions expressed optimism as the Acting Director-General, Jonathan Juma, stated, “NIPSS has the experience and capacity to deliver on the Think Thank Conference, having just coordinated successfully similar conferences on Nigeria’s Foreign Policy, Water Security, Federalism, Environmental as well as Post-Conflict Management in the North East of Nigeria.”

Also speaking at the inauguration, Managing Director, NFC, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, represented by the corporation’s Head of Public and International Affairs, Mr. Brian Etuk, commended NIPSS for taking up the partnership with NFC to drive the conference, saying the corporation was determined to assist government transform Nigeria’s film and creative industry into an economy, with robust tendencies to generate employment and create wealth.

Etuk cited the roles creative industry has had on the economies of China, Japan and America, especially the State of California. Nigeria, he said, was in dire need of a sustainable policy framework for the development of the creative sector and assured that the conference would surely address all the gaps that had stood, as challenges to the growth of Nigeria’s motion picture industry.

The terms of reference of the 10-man committee, are to put the modalities in place for the realisation of the conference, including the time, date and venue, to draw a list of all stakeholders and invitees for the approval of management, to determine comprehensive sub-themes for the conference, to propose a draft budget as well as to liaise with both managements on the funding of a successful conference and to submit a detailed report to both managements at the end of the conference.